From 733fec604b71e37a80a0b66e1f84f9ab2038c647 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Simon Michael Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2024 18:25:10 -1000 Subject: [PATCH] ;doc: text output: expand --- hledger/hledger.m4.md | 19 ++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/hledger/hledger.m4.md b/hledger/hledger.m4.md index b85185145..db6124f77 100644 --- a/hledger/hledger.m4.md +++ b/hledger/hledger.m4.md @@ -722,7 +722,24 @@ Here are some notes about the various output formats. ### Text output -This is the default: human readable, plain text report output, suitable for a terminal. +This is the default: human readable, plain text report output, +suitable for viewing with a monospace font in a terminal. +If the data contains wide characters, use a font and terminal that render those correctly. + +Some reports (`register`, `aregister`) will use the width indicated by the `COLUMNS` environment variable. +If your shell and terminal are working well, they will keep COLUMNS updated as you resize the window. +So register reports normally will use the full window width. +When this isn't working or isn't what you want, you can manually set COLUMNS, or use register's `-w`/`--width` option. + +Balance reports (`balance`, `balancesheet`, `incomestatement`...) use whatever width they need. +Multi-period multi-currency reports can often be wider than the window. Helpful techniques for this situation include +--tree, --depth, --drop, --layout=bare, -V, cur:, --transpose, less, emacs shell, switching to html output, etc. + +(Help output uses a pager automatically when appropriate, but regular reports do not, currently.) + +hledger tries to detect ANSI color support and use it when appropriate, +currently rather minimally (showing negative numbers in red). +You can override it in the usual ways with `--color` or the `NO_COLOR` environment variable. ### HTML output